Dan Amrich
Los Angeles, CA
Male, 41
I started reviewing videogames professionally in 1993, when Genesis and SNES roamed the earth. Over the next 15 years I worked for magazines and websites like GamePro, GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine, and World Of Warcraft Official Magazine, while freelancing for Wired, PC Gamer, and many others. In an attempt to guide the next generation of reviewers, I wrote and published Critical Path: How to Review Videogames For A Living in February. Ask away!
I have always been a non-fiction guy, in writing and reading; I have friends who have made the jump from critic to storyteller (Jay Turner & Gary Whitta to drop a few names), but I am not one of them, nor do I ever expect to be. It's not that I wouldn't like to try, or that I don't have ideas that I think might make interesting games, but I don't believe there is a direct connection between those two fields and it's never been a goal -- I love being a game critic. A lot of people do think, after playing a game or reviewing a game, that they can make a better one -- to which I say, that's probably the healthiest thing you can undertake. Give it a try and get an appreciation for how difficult it really is. Your subsequent reviews will turn out far more informed.
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I applied for a job at GameSpot once, but have never worked there -- I think you mean GamePro, where I wrote as "Dan Elektro" from 1997 to 2003. Leaving GamePro was very difficult and emotional. I really thought I would be there for my entire career, and my wife Kat (Miss Spell) and I really enjoyed the luxury of working together. We have a great shorthand that makes us very efficient together. A change of management valued me but not her, and we got an offer from Future to go as a team to work on a new project. I wanted to stay at GP, and made that clear, but I wanted to keep this creative partnership going more, so we took the other offer. The project we worked on only lasted a year so I transitioned to GamesRadar, where I was US employee #2. It was a long and sometimes torturous process, but I think it's that way with any startup project. The daily grind and chaos got to me and started affecting my health, so when an opening appeared at OXM, I almost begged for it -- and it turned out to be a great fit. I am still super proud of those three years and the features the magazine ran on my watch. However, it became clear that with a staff full of superstars with seniority, there was little room to advance -- and in over a decade, I had never been Editor-in-Chief of anything. The WoW mag gave me that opportunity and I was one of the bigger fans of the game in the office, so it was a natural fit. I do not consider myself a flighty person -- I like to pick a project and stick with it long-term -- so the shorter sections of my resume are a little embarassing. But in all cases, I was chasing job satisfaction. I know what I'm good at, and I want to play to my strengths. Writing makes me happy, and I always wanted to write for outlets where my voice and skills were a good fit.
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No. Games are like films or books -- very much a product of their time. I have a great respect for what came before, but I think if you force someone to play, watch, or read something, they are not approaching it with an open mind and will likely not appreciate it the way you want them to. You can recommend, but shoving it down their throat isn't good. Sorta like a game review -- it's advice, but not imperative commands.
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Sure, they try. I mean, it's in their best interest to be polite and accommodating and put you in a good frame of mine about their product. The trick is not to let it actually affect your decision. Giving me access to more information -- developer chats, deeper Q&As with the team -- often makes me like a game more than trinkets or trips because I understand more of what's going on behind the scenes for real. I understand the team's goals better and what they are trying to do with the game. T-shirts are nice and all, but if you want to impress me, give me knowledge and understanding instead. :) There is a line that can be crossed, and it's up to every writer not to cross it. For 15 years, I had no trouble seeing and respecting that line.
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Parcel Delivery Mailman
Are you a lot stronger and more fit because of your job?
School Teacher
Do you think teachers are underpaid? Why?
Videogame Reviewer
Pick one: Nintendo Ice Hockey, NHL ‘94, or Blades of Steel?
Keep in mind that this is entirely subjective, and I can only comment on the games I've played or reviewed (well, yes, I have played all the games I've reviewed, you know what I mean...) I think the worst games I ever reviewed were Combat Cars for the Genesis (a top down racer with no mini-map) and Chicago Enforcer for Xbox, which was a very very bad 1930s FPS. I was just amazed that it made it through certification. Best? I have too much nostalgia for the old days of arcades to say anything other than Robotron 2084 or Tempest, but they still kick my ass today. Any game that remains challenging 30 years after it was created deserves the title "classic."
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Not just try -- it's required. It's irresponsible to review a game where co-op or multiplayer is an important element and not properly play those modes. For pre-release games that are not yet publicly available, the PR team will arrange for devs or the QA staff to play in those modes with you. If the game is publicly available, go online. Not having friends is not acceptable -- play with strangers, since that's what other people in your situation would have to do. There is no excuse and no reason why a reviewer could not play a game like L4D in single-player mode as well as co-op mode. Playing a game to its fullest before writing about it is the job. Accept the responsibility or don't accept the assignment.
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Sure -- but it might not be in those obvious A/V categories. At some point we're going to hit a visual threshhold where it just doesn't matter if games look better, or the improvements made will be less obvious. So the innovation has to come from things like gameplay and concept and big ideas, I think. We know spaceships can blast aliens; we know dudes can beat each other up; we know one hero can save the world. But when you consider how many interesting topics books and movies cover that games currently do not, you realize there's tons of room for growth. The world of gaming is not limited to simulations of both real and imagined worlds and activities; I think we're going to see "better" come from "more thought-provoking" in the long haul. And those thought-provoking games can absolutely come with photorealistic graphics, surround sound, and tangible 3D worlds -- but those can't be the focus in and of themselves.
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